Get Up Off The Mat
by KroganVanguard
Summary: Castle and Beckett deal with the immediate aftermath of the ominous message from Tyson. A post-ep for 'Disciple' (6x09).


The silence is still and heavy in the apartment afterwards, pressing down on their shoulders. He pulled out the USB stick mid-song, but it was too late, the damage done. He's never seen her so shaken up, hazel eyes wide with fear and with shock as they stared at each for a moment that seemed to stretch into millennia, before he whirled to make it stop, to make that expression disappear from her features.

Too late.

By the time he turns back from the computer she's regained that iron control, her mask back in place. But he knows her now, knows her better than anyone, and he can see the tiny little fractures, the pattern of cracks that lace through that façade.

She shrugs off his embrace.

He isn't surprised or hurt, and lets her go to the kitchen, drink a glass of water. Grip the edges of the kitchen counter, staring into nothingness. She needs a moment- a few moments- to deal with the blow. He can't begrudge her that, because he's been steeling himself, been preparing himself for this moment for over a year now. She can have a few more minutes to wrap her head around it.

He turns to his liquor cabinet instead, his hands remarkably steady as he pours himself a fifth of scotch. It burns down his throat, fire and warmth and feeling that he needs right now, needs it to face the threat and promise that has just piped throughout their home. He pours himself another, swallowing this one slower. Everything that Tyson does comes back to him, ties back to him, back to that motel room where he wasn't fast enough, wasn't smart enough to warn Ryan. Wasn't good enough to stop Tyson from escaping. From killing again and again.

Instead, deliberately he sets about fighting the quiet and stillness, and pulling them out of their twin spirals. Pulling out pots and pans and vegetables and spices, injecting some normality into their evening, regathering control from Tyson. This is where their fight begins, in reclaiming the environs of their home, in not letting the fear creep in and wind its way through their spines. He knows. He's fought it before.

"What do you think? Penne arrabbiata?" He keeps his tone normal, almost playful. The packet of pasta rustles in his hand as he pulls it from the cupboard. She is still facing the sink, but he can see the initial tension just leach a little out of her shoulders, the muscles of her back relaxing ever so slightly.

She turns. Her face is pale, but she's worked through some of that fear already. There is steel in her, a core to Katherine Houghton Beckett that has seen off a sniper, bluffed off her mother's killer and kept her going against all odds when she was hanging off a building or standing on a bomb. An indomitable spirit that ensures she never backs down. Doesn't know how to quit. He loves that about her, just as much as he loves the fact she feels so safe with him that she doesn't have to always show him the steel. That she can reveal her vulnerability too.

She gives him a wan smile, one that never reaches her eyes, but he appreciates the fact she tried. For him. For them.

"Not really hungry, Castle."

"It's been a big day. We need to…"

She nods. She understands what he's doing now, how he's trying to stop their world from spinning out of its axis. She pitches in to help, silently at first, slicing up the chillies as he deals with the pasta, their rhythm re-establishing itself of its own accord.

"So you were right. About Tyson." Her voice is flat, absolutely neutral. This tells its own story, because when she is that emotionless, she is repressing strongly.

"Wish I wasn't."

"How did you- I mean, is this what it was like for you? Last year?" Now there is a note of regret to her words. A silent apology of sorts that she didn't believe him.

"Sort of. This is more…more direct. More real. Makes it easier, in a way."

He's moved alongside her to gather up the tomatoes, and she glances up at him, eyes no longer watery, but still flat, still cool. Not at him, he knows. Whatever they work through in this conversation, it'll take her days, if not weeks or months, to completely regain her balance.

As it had been for him.

"And what's the secret? To dealing with the fact there's a serial killer out there with a vendetta against you? How do you get up off the mat?"

"Can't let the terrorists win, Kate." His words aren't light and mocking, but solid, interlocking bricks with gravity to them to make sure she understands. "Can't stop living your everyday life. If you do, he's already won. That's what he wants, to see us shrivel up and retreat out of fear."

She's tilts her chin in assent, seeing the logic. He's always understood Tyson better than her, had an inside line on the twisted tracks of the man's mind. Not that he wants to think too deeply about why.

"We stay prepared. We marshal our resources. We move on with our lives."

The water is boiling now, all the ingredients prepared. Before he puts the pan on, he takes a moment to brush a hand along her back, letting her feel the warmth of his fingers. She leans back into his chest, her back nestling into his chest. They're together in this. They can do it.

"We move on." She repeats, enunciating clearly. "I've done that before."

Bracken. Another serpent that waits in the low grass, threatening their happiness.

"Hey maybe, we can sic them on each other. Tyson versus Bracken. Solve both our problems in one…"

She gives him the old eyebrow raise. There's his Kate, already coming out of her funk, fight starting to course through her, the fear dulling.

He brushes his lips across the top of her hair, and then turns back to the food, the garlic and the chillies joining the olive oil in the pan.

He might've let Tyson get away, but he won't let Tyson steal their happiness. Nonetheless, to marshal their resources means to come up with a plan. Some way to stop the man, some way to end his killing spree for good.

He crashes the spatula fiercely through the frying chunks, the tomatoes joining them with a shake of broad hands.

He is, in a way, as responsible for every life Tyson has taken for the last few years as Tyson himself is.

"Wine?" She wanders over to the rack behind him, hips brushing against his rear quite deliberately.

"Sure."

The basil follows the tomatoes into the pan.

A glass appears next to him, and he looks up to see her standing next to him, her arm curling around the width of his back, green eyes absorbing and calculating whatever expression appears on his face.

"It isn't your fault." Her voice is clear and serious. "You cannot blame yourself."

He forgets, sometimes, that she knows him, knows every inch of him physical and otherwise as no one else in the world does. All it takes to remind him is a single phrase or sentence, a pinpoint strike to the heart of the matter no one else would have been able to make.

She takes over looking after the pasta, a fork spearing one and bringing it to her mouth, deeming it not quite done.

He breaks up more basil leaves by hand, keeps stirring and simmering the sauce.

"I let him get away."

"He tied you to a chair. You almost died. Twice." She nuzzles his shoulder. "I almost lost you before we even got started, before we even got close to here."

A jolt of pain flashes through him at that scenario, at their life not lived, not just for himself but for the dark and embittered creature she would have become with the death of someone else close to her.

"He keeps killing."

"That is on him, as sick and cruel individual. Not your burden to bear."

A moment of quiet, but not like the one before. Companionable silence, as he adds the last of the basil and turns the heat down, the sauce almost done.

"Kate, I…"

He trails off, not quite sure what he wants to say, what he needs to express to her. But as ever, she knows.

"Guilt is corrosive Castle. It eats away at you. It ate away at me for years, before I realised I was chasing forgiveness from someone who couldn't give it to me. My mom died. She couldn't grant me forgiveness. I had to grant that to myself."

Shadows flicker over her face, hints of yearning and of self-doubt, of burying herself in her mother's case. The eyes though, they are large and green and honest, her hands warm as she entwines her fingers through his.

"You almost lost me to it. Don't let me lose you to this."

He wants to say something, to reassure her, to tell her everything will be alright, but he can't. The air is stuck inside his throat.

"Not now. Not when we have a real chance, a real shot at our happiness together."

Instead of speaking, he takes a step forward and buries her in his embrace, wrapping his arms around her lean form in a bear hug. She sinks into his warmth, accepting his non-verbal promise.

"You're not going to lose me Kate, not to this, not to anything else." His hand finds hers, tracing over the empty patch of finger where her ring sometimes resides. "I'm your idiot now."

"Good."

She looks up at him, standing on her toes to press her lips to his, and she tastes of wine and happiness and future promises.

He reluctantly breaks the kiss a few moments later to ensure their dinner isn't burnt and she moves with him to drain the pasta and ladle it into the set plates, and he follows her lead with the sauce, crowning the pasta with the angry-red sauce. She brings the wine-glasses to the table and he joins her with the food.

They sit side-by-side, his ankles hooked around her feet as they eat. It is nice, domestic, a partial recovery from the horror of their evening. She scrambles for the remote to his music system, and the rich notes of Coltrane accompany the food in harmony. The simple and bold flavours of the arrabiatta are the perfect tonic and comfort food for the sort of day they've faced.

They talk, of smaller matters, of Alexis's visit next weekend, and of Martha's last attempt at making coffee. About how she plans to go to a baseball game with her dad, and would he like to come, but he might have prior plans with his daughter and he'll have to check. Not inconsequential things, but real things, the details of day-to-day life.

It isn't as easy as that to recover, of course. He knows that, and he's not kidding himself. Beckett will still have to fight her own fears, her own demons. She might have nightmares tonight. He did, for days, after Tyson came after him last time. He'll swing between feeling guilt and responsibility and accepting them, and fighting them. It will not be an easy tightrope to navigate.

But he doesn't fear that they'll get there. They will. They've got through worse in the past, and now with so much more to fight for, they'll get through this too.

No matter when they meet Tyson and Nieman again, they'll get through it.

* * *

_'Disciple' has a fairly dark ending, and I struggled with a couple of different versions of this post-ep. Switching tones coming out of that episode and into the cuteness of TGTBATB is pretty difficult. Nonetheless, here's my stab at step 1 of that process. I know there are some elements of the fandom that believe the song has special meaning for Beckett (refers to her mother in some way), but I don't subscribe to that theory._

_Leave a review if you liked, that is what keeps me writing, getting feedback from fellow fans. Thanks._


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